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Friday, October 25, 2013

Ok, so you probably read that title and are thinking "Wow, is this kid secretly a conspiracy theorist?" Well, the answer to that is no. I (like many other nerds) just over examine things, take mental notes, and I derive things from those notes. This week I have derived very close similarities between communism and public school They include: all teachers get paid the same, there is only one place to buy things from, which is the government.

My first point is that all teachers are paid the same no matter how good of a job they do. For instance, I had a teacher last year that said she hated us all, and taught us anything. Yet this year I have a teacher that we play fun games in her class, and we learn a ton. They taught the same subject and made the same amount. This I believe should not occur, the teacher that is truly an awful human being(I do not mean to be excessively harsh here, and I am not because this teach was that bad, she's gone now though) should make much less than the great one. Making the same amount, no matter how good of a job you do is one of the fundamental principles of Communism.

Another principle of communism is that everything is owned and operated by the government and thus the people. The only place you can buy food, snack, and other things in the school, is from the school. The best example of this is school lunch. Everyday, more than half of the students buy lunch from the school, and everyday it is the same nasty slop as the day before (except for the day of the chicken fried steak, that stuff is the shit). Yet we continue to buy it, as many of us have no time to pack a lunch, and there is no where else to buy a lunch in the cafeteria. Say for instance we had a few restaurant in the cafeteria that were not connected financially to the school. The place with the best product and cheapest prices would get the most customers, forcing each other to continue to lower the price, and increase the quality, all in pursuit of the children's money. But alas, in public school we do it the communist way, with only one place to buy your food: the government.

I hoped you enjoyed my little rant about school, but do not take it the wrong way. I love school and we are very fortunate to have it for free. Alas, nothing in the universe is perfect especially the little microcosm know as school.

Friday, October 11, 2013

I believe that one day 3d printing should, but probably won't infiltrate consumer homes. If it does I believe that FFF(Fused Filiment Fabrication) will be the type that gets in, it's not that this is only type, there's are SL, SLS, and about 20 other types, but FFF, SL, and SLS are the main kinds. I'll explain what each is throughout this post. To be a consumer product it must satisfy the following facts about consumer: Consumers are, lazy, Impatient expect the best, and are cheap.

Consumers are lazy, they want to do the least and get the most. FFF lays down layers of plastic, and is the only one that is ready to use right after the printing is done. SLS, uses lasers to bind together plastic powder, so after your done printing, you have to knock off the powder, then brush it to get the rest of the powder off, it takes time and energy. SL is a little bit easier after your done printing you just soak in hydrogen peroxide for a few hours.

Impatient
Consumers are very impatient, if they want something they want it now. FFF is the slowest, topping out about 300mm/s, or about 10 minutes to build a smartphone case. While the others, are just about 10% to 100% faster. However, FFF does not require any finish like SL, that has to be soaked in hydrogen peroxide, or to be dusted like SLS. Depending on job size make FFF the quickest.

Expect The Best
Consumers expect the best, think about it, you expect you computer to run smoothly and get mad if there is a problem. This is the only place that FFF loses, it cannot produce the quality that SL or SLS can produce, it goes down to the 35 microns for the best FFF printer, and about 25 microns for a desktop SL machine, there are no desktop SLA machines yet to compare, but for the bigger industrial printer it blows away all the others away at 15 microns. However, you can get FFF to look as good or even better than SL or SLS by heating up some acetone and putting the parts in the vapor, but I believe the average consumer wouldn't do this.Cheap
The average consumer has enough to pay the bills, save a little, then have a little bit left fo unessential items like and X-box, or a new TV, or hopefully a 3d printer. This is where FFF shines the, it the the cheapest of all... by a lot. The cheapest SL will you run you about $3,000, the cheapest, SLA will cost around $10,000, and the cheapest FFF will cost $300. The material is also way cheaper, a kilo of filament for a FFF printer will cost about $30, the prices are similar for SLS printers, then jumps up to $300 a kilo for SL resin.